Illegal Gambling Ads Hijacked Scottish Council Website
Sixteen links on the Scottish Borders Council website were found redirecting visitors to offshore online casino sites instead of the community council pages they were meant to reach, according to a BBC Scotland News investigation published on August 21, 2026.
The local authority removed the links after the BBC raised the issue, but has not responded to requests for comment.
Domain Squatting Behind The Redirects
The Scottish Borders Council website hosts a directory of all 69 community councils in the region, including links to each group's social media, email and website. The BBC found that 16 of those links instead pointed to pages advertising offshore gambling operators that fall outside UK regulation.
Dr Daniel Thomas, a cyber security expert at the University of Strathclyde, told the BBC the incident was an example of "domain squatting," where organisations buy up expired domain names once linked to reputable websites.
It is not illegal to purchase an expired domain, but Thomas said the practice exploits the trust built into old, still-referenced links. "When someone is looking for the community council and are met with this gambling portal they will think something is wrong and of course not engage with the site," he said.
"But when someone is searching for these sites, the now re-directed community council site will be at the top of list, as it appears a local group is giving out suggestions on the best offshore gambling sites to use."
A Defunct Directory Turned Gambling Funnel
Fifteen of the 16 affected community council sites had been built and hosted on Online Borders, a former third-sector website directory.
Sources within the community councils told the BBC that when the platform stopped working roughly eight years ago, Scottish Borders Council shut it down and told the groups to build their own sites.
The old Online Borders domain was later acquired and repurposed to funnel every legacy link to a page promoting "top noGamstop casinos."
The 16th site, run by Chirnside Community Council, was not hosted on Online Borders. Its own link had instead been taken over separately and now redirects to an Indonesian-language gambling site called Joyslot88.
Affected community councils spanned Berwickshire (Chirnside, Duns, Gordon & Westruther, Hutton & Paxton), Cheviot (Ancrum, Crailing/Eckford & Nisbet, Heiton & Roxburgh, Lanton, Oxnam Water, Sprouston), Eildon (Bowden, Newton & Eildon), Teviot & Liddlesdale (Hobkirk, Southdean, Upper Liddesdale & Hermitage) and Tweeddale (Carlops).
Casino Games Hub
Offshore Sites Bypass UK Player Protections
The gambling sites the links redirected to operate outside British jurisdiction, meaning they are not part of Gamstop, the UK's national self-exclusion scheme for problem gamblers. The BBC also reported that the sites accept credit card payments, a method the UK Gambling Commission banned in 2020 to stop consumers gambling with borrowed money.
Scottish Borders Council removed the affected links once alerted, and BBC News reported it subsequently issued a memo asking community councils to keep their websites up to date. The council did not respond to requests for comment from the BBC. The broadcaster said it was unable to reach the operators of the gambling websites involved.
The episode follows a similar case in June 2026, when a parish council website in Old Catton, Norfolk, had its contact page replaced with Indonesian-language content promoting online slot games, according to a separate according to a separate BBC report. That council said it removed the material as soon as it was discovered and reviewed its security measures.
Both cases point to small local authority and community websites, often run with limited technical resources, as recurring targets for hijacked or expired domains being repurposed to promote unlicensed gambling.
